Manny Taur's SDCCI diary
February 28 I am having a hard time sleeping tonight. My ears are still ringing from the noise of the crowd and my back is still sore from being slapped on it by so many monsters. I have replayed the shot in my head so many times already and I'm still not tired of watching it again and again. It was a tough game against the same team of the gargoyle school that knocked us out of the playoffs last years. Until tonight happened, the memory of that game last year was the one that kept me up at night. We were up by one and all we had to do was hold onto the ball and run out the clock. Deuce was bringing the ball up court and got triple teamed leaving me open. Somehow he was able to get the ball to me, but instead of waiting for the defense to collapse on me and then pass the ball back to Deuce, our best dribbler on the team, I saw what looked like an open lane to the basket and I charged in for the dunk. Only it was a trap, 'cause at the last moment one of their players stepped in front of me and I got called for a charge. Two foul shots later they were the team up by one and time ran out on the game and our season. I spent the whole year wanting a boo-over for that mistake. Tonight I got one. It was almost the same scenario as last year, except we were down by one with ten seconds left. Deuce brought the ball up court and he got double-teamed. Every other monster on the team was covered but me. Deuce passes me the ball, and I start dribbling hard toward the basket like I'm going in for the slam, and just like last year, one of their players slides over to take the charge, only this time instead of running into him I pull up at about fifteen feet and fired up a jump shot. Nothing. But. Net. The gargoyles were totally stone faced but you could tell they were mad their plan didn't work again this year. I guess they didn't know that after that game last year, rain or shine, I practiced that shot a 100 times a day until I could drill it in my sleep. I never attempted that shot once in a game all year because we didn't want other teams, especially the gargoyles, to be on guard for it but we worked on it every day in practice. It worked just like we planned it. I saw Iris at the game, too, which only added to the excitement. I heard she got hurt after the game though, which is why she didn't make it to the victory party afterwards. I hope she's okay. I guess I could call her, but I wouldn't know what to say so I'd probably end up saying something dumb. Great-I might as well forget about any sleep now. March 5 I've always had trouble saying the things that I really feel. It's like everything I want to say gets trapped inside a maze in my head and just when it seems the words are about to find an exit they run into a dead end. It's so frustrating it just makes me see red. When I came to Monster High I didn't really have any friends. It was my first year after middle school, where I had been one of the smallest monsters in my class. I got picked on a lot by this goblin and group of his fiends. I didn't really have any defenses. I was too small to fight back, too slow to run away and too shy to tell my teachers or parents what was happening. So I just kept everything bottled up inside me. But the summer between middle school and Monster High something amazing happened. I started growing. I grew seven inches taller and gained a lot of muscle that summer while working for my uncle in his rock quarry hauling out slabs of marble and granite. When I came home to get ready for school, my parents barely recognized me. So on the outside I had completely transformed, but on the inside not much had changed. Now a lot of monsters think you have to be big to be a bully, but that's not true 'cause there are lots of ways to bully a monster without touching them. The goblin that used to bully me in middle school wasn't very big, but other monsters thought he was funny so he would cut me down and if I said something some other monster would say, "Can't you take a joke?" It's not a joke if you're the only monster in the group that's not laughing and something about the way you look, or talk, or dress is the punch line. So imagine my surprise when the first group of monsters I ran into at MH was this goblin and his gang. When I walked by him he said something to them that sounded like "flood" and they all turned my way and started snickering. Because I'd grown so fast, my clothes didn't fit as well and the bottom of my jeans didn't go all the way down to my shoes. I was definitely rocking some high water pants and don't think I didn't realize it. This time though, instead of just walking by like I always had in the past I came back and walked right up to the goblin. I looked down on him and said, "You got something to say to me?" He turned as pale as a vampire wearing sunscream and just stuttered, "Nah-nah-nah-nah-no Manny." "I didn't think so," I said as I walked away. I guess if I'd have left it there it would have been fine but I took every chance I had to make life miserable for the goblin and his gang. I also started to bully other monsters just because I could. Then one day Abbey confronted me when I was bullying Howleen, and I know it sounds strange, but somehow I saw my middle school self in Howleen that day and I knew I had to change. That was also the week we lost our casketball game because of me. I've heard that a dragon can't change its scales, but I don't think I believe it. I think maybe you just need to be reminded that there's always a better choice to be made and then you just need the courage to make it. March 6 Iris. How can one name be the answer to every question and make me question every answer? I tried to talk to her today and I even wrote down and rehersed what I was going to say, but when I saw her all I could think was, "Gurgle humpty cat soap toe scraper." So I just walked past her without saying a thing. Ugh-why can't you just pick up something heavy to let someone know you like them? March 8 I hung out at Heath's house playing video games today. He asked me if I liked Iris and if I was going to ask her out. I told him I didn't know and to not ask me about it, but Heath being Heath kept pestering me so I took it out on his character in the game we were playing. "Dude-how'd you do that move?" he asked. "That was totally clawsome!" To be honest, I don't know how I made my character kick his into orbit, but it sure felt good to do it. March 9 I'm such a deplorabull monster I can't even look at myself in the mirror after what I said to Iris. Today in the creepateria I was trying not to notice her sitting at a table with Draculaura, Clawd, Heath and Abbey, but I couldn't help but walk by their table. Of course Heath had to invite me to sit with them. He's such an annoying elemental sometimes, but he's also my beast bud and I know he thinks he needs to watch out for me, which I appreciate even though I don't really need it... all right, occasionally I do need it. So I sat down across from Iris and mostly just stared at my food because I was too nervous to eat. They were all talking about a comet, and Draculaura was telling stories and Iris was laughing, and I wanted to say something funny and cool about her telescope and all the time she spends looking up at the stars, but what came out was, "Who cares about stars and planets and comets and stuff like that? It's just a dumb waste of time looking at places you can never go to anyhow." I could tell that I'd said the wrong thing, and then she called me a muscle head or something like that and then she got up and left. Abbey got up and went after her and Heath said, "Smooth, bro. Real smooth." I think I told him to stick an extinguisher in it and I left too. What's wrong with me and how am I supposed to fix this now? March 10 I wrote Iris a note and stuck it in her locker today. Actually, I wrote her several notes, but they all ended up on the floor as paper wads. Nothing I wrote seemed to fit, so I just wrote that I was sorry. I must have folded it like twenty times and only used my initials in case it fell out and some other monster found it. Part of me was hoping she'd just throw it away without reading it 'cause what if she read it and then said, "Too bad, Manny Taur-you've blown any chance you ever had with me." I don't think there's a maze twisty enough for me to hide in now. March 12 I'm having a hard time sleeping again tonight and I keep replaying what happened today over and over again, especially one scene in particular. I was pretty mopey when the day started, so much that even Heath couldn't cheer me up or irritate me. We had a school assembly that I didn't really want to go to, but I got drug along by Heath who made a big deal of getting there early enough to sit in the very top row. I thought about trying to save a seat for Iris, but why would she want to sit by me? She got to the assembly late and I felt bad for her as she had to hop down a row of monsters to the only open seat left. The speaker was this centaur biteologist was was supposed to talk about his adventures and show off some of the creatures he had collected around the world. About halfway into his presentation I realized that he'd never found any creature that he thought was more interesting than himself. I was starting to doze off when he brings a chimera onto the stage. I sat up. I remember dad saying they had these in the old country and they were mean and unpredictable. The speaker was acting like it was a house cat when something spooked the chimera and it started breathing fire. Every monster in the creepatorium tried to leave at once, and I saw there was no way Iris was going to make it out by herself, so I just started climbing over the rows in front of me to get down to where she was. I could tell she was panicked when I got to her, so I just picked her up. I think she was surprised, but she also seemed grateful. I carried her all the way outside and before I put her down she kissed me on the cheek. SHE KISSED ME ON THE CHEEK! I'm still not sure how to talk to her, but I am sure I'm going to work hard at learning how. Category:San Diego Comic-Con International diaries Category:Manny Taur logs